Percentage of a state’s public charter school student population enrolledin virtual charter schools

0%

Number of virtual public charter schools

0

Percentage of a state’s public charter schools that are virtual charter schools

0%

Health of the Movement Summary

A state’s public charter school movement had to meet two conditions to be scored and ranked in this year’s report. First, the movement had to serve at least 1 percent of the state’s public school students. Second, the state had to participate in the Center for Research on Education Outcomes’ (CREDO) 2013 National Charter School Study so that we had a measure of student academic growth data for its public charter schools in comparison to its traditional public schools. Virginia’s charter school movement did not meet either condition. Therefore, we did not score and rank Virginia’s public charter school movement in this year’s report.

However, we provided what data we were able to gather below. Based on this information, we offer the following observations:

In 2013–14, there were six public charter schools and 2,161 public charter school students in Virginia, constituting less than 1 percent of the state’s public schools and less than 1 percent of the state’s public school students, respectively.

In 2012–13, public charter schools in Virginia served lower percentages of racial and ethnic minority students (4 percentage points less) and free and reduced-price lunch students (27 percentage points less) but a higher percentage of English learners (7 percentage points more) when compared with traditional public schools.

Seventy-five percent of the state’s public charters were located in nonsuburban areas in 2011–12 as compared to 70 percent of traditional public schools.

Three new public charter schools opened in Virginia between 2009–10 and 2013–14, an average annual open rate of 14.3 percent.

One public charter school closed in Virginia between 2008–09 and 2012–13, an average annual closure rate of 5.3 percent.

One hundred percent of the state’s public charter schools were startups as of 2012–13.

In 2010–11, 100 percent of the state’s public charters were independently managed, meaning none of them were associated with a nonprofit charter management organization or a for-profit educational management organization.

In 2013–14, only local school districts were allowed to authorize in the state. Four of them had done so as of that year.

There were zero virtual public charter schools in Virginia during 2012–13.

Recommendations

Virginia has very small populations of public charter schools and public charter school students. To better support the growth of high-quality public charter schools, we encourage the state to change its law to create additional authorizing options, strengthen accountability, increase operational autonomy, and ensure equitable operational funding and equitable access to capital funding and facilities. We also encourage the state to explore why public charter schools are serving lower percentages of racial and ethnic minority students and free and reduced-price lunch students than traditional public schools.